Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Schmigadoon!’ Season 2 On Apple TV+, Which Takes The Action To The Darker, Sexier Musical World Of Schmicago

The first season of Schmigadoon! did such a good job of parodying the world of musicals from the ’40s and ’50s, the era made famous by writing teams like Rodgers and Hammerstein, that it was tough to think of what creators Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio would do for an encore. Well, the logic states that the next era of musicals, dominated by the likes of Stephen Sondheim, Bob Fosse and Andrew Lloyd Webber, would be next. But how to make this era of darker, more diverse and infinitely sexier musicals funny?

SCHMIGADOON! SEASON 2: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: “TEN SECONDS AFTER SCHMIGADOON.” Josh Skinner (Keegan-Michael Key) and Melissa Gimble (Cecily Strong) come back into the woods, holding hands. During their time in Schmigadoon, they found true love with each other.

The Gist: We see a montage of their next couple of years: Marriage, work, trying to get pregnant, more work, failed rounds of IVF, more work, and eventually being miserable. Not with each other, mind you, but just with everything else that’s going on.

Desperate, the couple don their Schmigadoon finest and try to find that bridge in the woods again. But after a number of fruitless and sweaty hours of hiking, the bridge isn’t anywhere to be found, so they drive home. Only the car gets a flat on a foggy bridge. A bridge, you say? One where they hear music? Yup, you know what’s coming.

Only this time the couple doesn’t enter Schmigadoon; they see a sign saying “Welcome to Schmicago”), with the site of dozens of gloved jazz hands moving around a sparkle-tux-wearing narrator (Tituss Burgess). They’re not walking into the happy, snappy world of ’40s and ’50s musicals, but the darker, more depressing, more daring world of ’60s and ’70s musicals, a genre that musical aficionado Melissa isn’t as familiar with, due to a traumatic viewing of Sweeney Todd when she was a kid.

They see familiar faces, but they’re different people, like blood-covered butcher Dooley Flint (Alan Cumming) and Madam Frau (Ann Harada), the manager of the local no-tell motel, look like Schmigadoon’s mayor and his wife. They check into Frau’s hotel, where she assumes they want to be there hourly. There, they meet Jenny Banks (Dove Cameron), who looks a lot like Betsy from Schmigadoon ( Josh doesn’t recall). She’s looking for some smokes, but she’s also chatty and invites them to see her perform at the local burlesque club.

There, they get a seat right up front to see a chorus of dancers sing about how daring they are: One likes both men and women! One has a tattoo! The emcee (Ariana DeBose) looks like Emma from Schmigadoon, except she has a mustache penciled on her face and she thrusts her groin out while dancing. Jenny comes out and does a rousing number. Josh and Melissa meet Octavius Kratt (Patrick Page), the owner of the club, whose main gig is controlling all the power in town, literally; he owns the electrical utility.

Josh finds one of the dancers dead in a dressing room he wanders in while looking for the bathroom. He’s immediately accused of killing her. Josh and Melissa try to escape in their car, but that pesky leprechaun (Martin Short) has cut their ignition cables, saying they need to find “a happy end.” That’s going to be hard, given their life situation, the depressing surroundings and the fact that police Sergeant Rivera (Jaime Camil) is about to arrest Josh for murder.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Cross the parody/satire of Schmigadoon! Season 1 with dark musicals like Chicago, Sweeney Todd and Cabaret, plus smidgens of other ’70s musicals like Annie and Hair, and you have Season 2.

Our Take: The stage musicals of the ’60s and ’70s are a bit harder to parody as a group as the ones from the ’40s and ’50s were, because later musicals weren’t nearly as homogenous a group as the earlier ones. Some were dark, some were daring, some were both. Others had a more positive outlook, but a depressing start, while still others were just hippies dancing and singing naked on the stage. Because of this, Schmigadoon! creators Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio have a harder time not only pinning down which musicals from that period are worth skewering, but also they have a harder time crafting a real story around the situation Melissa and Josh find themselves in.

Of course there are funny moments during the opening episode of Schmigadoon!’s first season, because the top notch cast — especially Key and Strong — can’t help but inject their funny banter into scenes, especially when they’re commenting on the weirdness they’re seeing.

And it’s not like Paul and Dario haven’t nailed the vibe of those musicals, almost all of which took place either in the 1800s or during the Depression. These are all of your classic Fosse and Sondheim stuff, where the characters had problems, and sexual proclivities that had never been explored on stage to that point.

But the first episode points to a season that could be less story and more parody. Considering how we welcomed the story elements of the first season, we hope that those elements return to Season 2 at some point.

Sex and Skin: The chorus girls singing “Does it shock you?” leans heavily on the sexiness of the ’60s-’70s era of musicals, and they know it. “We’re really putting a lot of effort into this!” they sing.

Parting Shot: Josh is arrested for the chorus girl’s murder; Melissa sees Josh carried off to jail in a paddywagon.

Sleeper Star: We’ll use this space to mention that Kristin Chenoweth, Jane Krakowski and Aaron Tveit are also back from Season 1 in new roles.

Most Pilot-y Line: “At one point, a lot of musicals had narrators, you know, instead of story,” Melissa tells Josh as the Narrator does his narration. While a funny line, it certainly points out the major problem with the show’s second season.

Our Call: STREAM IT. While not as enjoyable as Season 1, Season 2 of Schmigadoon! still has a lot going for it, especially if you’re a theater buff who felt that the 1960s — and especially the 1970s — was when Broadway was at its peak.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.